Author: faithfictionfatherhood

Ambiguity in Scripture, Part III

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In Part II of this series of posts, we talked about how ambiguity expands the number of things that scripture can say to us in a single passage. This time, let’s talk about how ambiguity makes room for faith, theology and humility.

We have discussed a few examples of ambiguity in scripture, so I’m not going to devote time to trying to prove that scripture is often ambiguous and subject to human interpretation.

If you want more than a literary analysis to reveal Biblical ambiguities, I would suggest reading Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus. As you’ll probably see in other posts, I have some significant reservations about Ehrman’s approach to the historical Jesus, but I can guarantee that you will learn something valuable if you listen to or read something he’s done. I don’t remember anything in Misquoting Jesus that my general criticism of his work extends to.

Misquoting Jesus will walk you through the many practical problems with interpreting and understanding the Bible. In the New Testament, for example, Koine Greek was written without punctuation and without spacing between words (writing media were quite expensive, after all). When we read the gospels in English (or anything other than the original Greek), all those interpretive aids of syntax and structure are at best guesses by the scholars who edit translations of the Bible. By way of example about how a mere comma can change meaning entirely, compare, “Let’s eat, Grandma!” to, “Let’s eat Grandma!” With a little research, you can find a number of passages in the New Testament—some of them the words of Jesus—about which the proper punctuation and structure remains hotly debated by Biblical scholars.

Here’s my first new point about how ambiguity in the scriptures really is a good thing: without ambiguity, there can be no faith. Faith, by definition, is a conviction of the truth of something that cannot be proved. Existentially, we could not have faith in God if we could readily prove God’s existence—God’s hiddenness from us creates room for faith. The same is true on a smaller scale within Biblical interpretation—because ambiguity allows for multiple interpretations, none of which can be unassailably shown to be correct—none can claim to have the definitive understanding of Jesus.

On the one hand, as we’ve already touched on, this allows us to see more of an infinite God through competing possible interpretations, some of which may be dismissed when weighed against other passages of the scripture, experience, tradition or reason, some of which remain simultaneously potentially valid.

For purposes of this post, I want to focus on the fact that ambiguity is the great equalizer in terms of our faith in God and our following of Jesus. Were salvation, or even an understanding of Jesus, predicated upon intellect, education or interpretive ability, we would have a de facto form of Calvinist or Augustinian election. But, as Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” This includes works of interpretation, I think.

As important, we are told, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 8). If God is love, by the transitive property the converse must also be true: anyone who knows love also knows God.

One cannot know love except by experience and personal encounter with it. One cannot reason one’s way into understanding love by intellect alone. In this way, human experience itself allows (through the experience and practice of love) the ability to follow Jesus and to be sanctified.

In this way, theology ought to be viewed as an exploration of what it means to love, what it means to follow Jesus, but it is not the thing itself. Those who do not grasp complex theological concepts, whether by choice or ability, are not to be excluded from Christ’s reach. I find the egalitarianism of that concept awesome in the classical sense of the word.

As someone who derives a great amount of his identity from being an intellectual, I find this realization amazingly humbling. For all my theologizing (which, obviously, I greatly enjoy), I’m not going to enlighten someone; I’m not going to reveal some truth heretofore unknown. As an amateur theologian, all I really do is help people to find ways to think about what it means to follow God or to live in a world where God exists. I’m at best a glorified moving guy—I can help you unpack, but I can’t get you the stuff in the first place.

There’s also an important point in how we deal with theological disagreements. Because we cannot be absolutely sure of the truth of our own theology (or theologies in the collective), we ought not to be too oppositional when discussing matters of faith with others. Overconfidence in one’s theological position leads to persecution of others, turning away the unchurched and generally working against Christ’s goals for us.

Important caveats here. First, I am not saying that theology is relative. I firmly believe that there is an objective truth to reality in all things, including theological matters and the way we are supposed to think about and relate to God and each other. My thoughts are not borne from a lack of belief in objective truth, but a healthy dose of skepticism about human intellectual capacity to clearly understand that truth.

Direct human knowledge of the capital “T” Truth, I think only comes from direct revelation from God. Every other method of understanding requires approximation. I believe that direct revelation from God has occurred and continues to occur, but this doesn’t really change things for humans as a whole. One person may have a revelation from God and know the truth, but since I cannot occupy that person’s consciousness to verify the reality of claims to know the truth, I cannot rule out the possibilities of self-delusion, misinterpretation of experiences, or outright lying. Someone else’s revelation carries with it the same ambiguity as any other form of indirect revelation—like the scriptures. Unless I’m the one who directly receives the revelation, I cannot be absolutely sure of its truth. To date, I have not received any direct revelation of truth from God—nor do I expect to. Everything I have to say is interpretation and should be treated as such.

Along with this, I don’t mean to imply that the lack of direct access to the Truth makes theology worthless. Quite the contrary. We need continuous theological investigation to evaluate our theology and allow it to progress into what we think is the closest approximation of the Truth. Theology may be an asymptote that comes ever closer to infinity but never touches it.

There is still ground for theological debate, and competing theologies can be weighed against one another by the amount of support we find for them through scripture, the application of logic and conformity with experience.

And, as I’ve mentioned above, I think that there is one thing in scripture (and reality) that is completely unambiguous. We are to love God and one another. For me, that’s the only Truth I need; I can live with the ambiguity of everything that follows.

Point Three: Ambiguity in scripture shows us that we are equal in the eyes of God, regardless of interpretive or intellectual ability.

For the next post in this series, click here.

What We’ve Learned So Far

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Here, in all its brief glory, is what I have learned about children in nearly two weeks of having them.

  1. They cry when they’re: too cold, too hot, hungry, full, getting in the car, getting out of the car, doing things they don’t like, doing things they do like, following instructions, disobeying instructions, waking up, going to bed, too wet, too dry, walking, being carried, riding in the stroller, going to the playground, leaving the playground, starting dinner, finishing dinner, taking a bath, drying off and for no discernible reason at all.
  2. They refuse to be reasonable. They don’t understand what’s good for them or what’s bad for them, nor do they seem to much care. They say “yes” when they mean “no” and vice versa. This is especially difficult for me, as I pride myself on being a reasonable and open-minded human being, most of my social skills are predicated on the other people involved being reasonable, and I generally avoid people who refuse to be reasonable to the extent I can.
  3. They are bad for your health. When food is one of your few remaining pleasures, you give up on all this “eating healthy” stuff. Give me sugar and chocolate; it’s all I have left. Exercising becomes part of your daily routine yes (toddler lifts, baby carry, etc.), but children do not understand that you do a set of reps and then you stop. Worse, when you have two at once, they conspire. When one has started to scream and you’re attempting to diagnose the issue, the other begins to see if s/he can scream louder–the surprise, competition and screaming are all great fun, I’m sure. When this happens often enough, all you want to do is bang your head against the wall until the throbbing pain coursing through your brain drowns everything else out and nothing matters. This is not good for you.
  4. They neither understand nor care that adults have needs and desires. There is only service.
  5. Small children have neither a sense of time nor much in the way of memory. If something caused them great displeasure yesterday, they’re going to try it again today just to see. They never seem to need something until they need it RIGHT NOW!
  6. They suck up all of your time. When you’re not tending to them, you’re wondering about the next time they’re going to need something. When they’re sleeping, you’re dreading the time that they’ll wake up.
  7. Somehow, despite all of this, they’re somehow worth it…

Writing is Hard

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I spend a lot of my life writing, whether for work or for pleasure. Both as a critic of other writing and someone often frustrated by the task myself, I feel that I can definitively say that writing is just plain hard. But why? Let’s take a look.

Complexity

Language is one of humanity’s most complex inventions. Words are symbols for things, not the things themselves. As representatives of things and ideas, there is necessarily some amount of slippage between the word and the thing itself as we try to use words to capture meaning. The study of symbols in language is called semiotics; the field combines statistical research, philosophy and a number of other approaches to investigate how we use language to transmit meaning and ideas.

Readers of the “Faith” section of the blog likely know that I’m very interested in the importance of ambiguity. In terms of language, we ought to recognize that there is ambiguity inherent to any use of words to communicate ideas, because the idea must be translated to words and back to ideas between two otherwise isolated consciousnesses.

I feel like I could really stop right here, because this, more than anything else, is why all use of language is difficult. But, wait, there’s more…

Obscure Rules

Even those writers with natural skill and a unique voice may find themselves confused by the many rules of grammar and syntax.

Partially this is the fault of history and the credulity of the masses. English, at least, has a number of arbitrary rules that some slavishly seek to enforce without knowing their origin or purpose. For instance, the command never to use a preposition at the end of a sentence (famously mocked by Churchill) comes from Bishop Lowth, writing in the 18th century and following the example set by the author John Dryden. The two felt that sentences terminating with prepositions were less graceful than those that placed prepositions antecedent to the sentence’s conclusion.

This is an excellent example of proscriptive rules about language—do this; don’t do that. Grammarians of the 17th and especially 18th centuries loved to create rules about the use of language in the haughty expectation that they were improving the language over past usage. We have collectively forgotten the reasons for such proscriptive rules while still obeying many of them.

Other rules of language are descriptive—the way English speakers convey this idea is through this language, though technically correct, people don’t say that. The issue we run into here is that usage naturally changes over time, and arguments are bound to ensue between “progressive” language theorists and “traditional” language theorists. I think that there may be something instinctual about taking a traditional stance here, something about preservation of unity of tribe or something—think about how often we groan when we hear what new words (that we’re all using) have been added to official dictionaries.

Even when we’re not arguing about rules and the reason for them makes sense, there’s a lot to remember. Does that comma go inside or outside the quotation marks? Do we just add an apostrophe or an apostrophe and “s”?

K likes to tese me that I have “three degrees in reading and writing” (which I suppose is mostly true), but I still have to look up rules of grammar on occasion, and I certainly still make mistakes (much to her delight).

Add on to this societal judgments based on a person’s mastery (or lack thereof) of the arcane vagaries of outmoded rules of structure in writing—and the nervousness that comes along with our understanding that, whenever we write, people will judge us for the quality of our writing. Usually when they do this, they’re not judging us as writers but as people. What’s your social class? Where are you from? How educated are you? How traditional? All of these things (and more) come out in our use of language, both confusing the way our words are received and pressuring us to conform to expectations in the use of language.

Substance and Style

There is, overall, an illusion that substance—that is, the subject and material of a writing—and the style of a piece of writing are separate and distinct categories. I used to have the thought that “I’m a good storyteller, but not a very good stylist” and believed that that would be passable in success as a writer.

Nothing is farther from the truth. Great storytellers are those whose mastery of style facilitates the story that they tell, matching the substance and enhancing it.

Good style in writing is a mysterious thing; part science, part art, part soul of the writer. We must combine study and practice to discover our own personal style, but this style must also be objectively effective for us to successfully reach an audience. This, I’m finding, is a slow and painful process, because we must make mistakes, suffer mediocre results and push through disappointment on the long road to developing that style.

Further, our style must be adaptable—no one style fits all manner of writing, even within the same “type” of writing. My professional style of writing (as a lawyer) must adapt based on the purpose of the writing, my audience and the circumstances. As a fiction writer, my style must change based on the dramatic and narrative needs of the story being told.

So how do we develop style that blends with and augments the substance of our writing? Personally, I’m trying a shotgun approach—a little bit of everything below to see what sticks. We can study the Greco-Roman categories of rhetorical techniques (many of which you studied in high school, like metonymy, its sister synecdoche and the more obscure apocope). We can read great writers and find ways that we can emulate them in our own voice (but we must beware “maverick theory”, see below). We can read books and take courses on writing style and techniques, whether seeking an MFA or reading books like Bill Walsh’s Lapsing into a Comma. We can read essays by successful authors for useful advice. We can simply practice until we find what works.

Audience, The Unknown Variable

Unless your writing for someone you know very well, and perhaps even then, it’s impossible to predict exactly how a reader will interpret your words. One certainly can’t account for all readers taking your intended meaning, though we can probably hit the majority by playing probabilities with style and dramatic effect. Still, it’s rare that you have information and skill enough to tailor your words to a specific audience in the way that will have the maximum effect.

Dead Text

For some reason, I only here people talk about this with text messages. Perhaps it’s because no one writes real letters any more or because people treat emails like text messages (even in a professional setting). Most likely, it’s because our text messages are so often use as surrogates for face-to-face (or even phone) conversations. No aspersions here; I’m one of the worst offenders on that front.

That said, it’s difficult to convey intent and tone with words, because we are conditioned to react to vocal patterns, timbre of voice, gestures and other body language and a whole host of other clues as to the meaning of the spoken word. That’s simply not available in written language, which is not necessarily a bad thing from the standpoint of fostering a reader’s imagination. On the other hand, it makes conveying meaning especially difficult as we must not only attempt to convey actual intent but also actively avoid misleading messages of tone and intent.

Maverick Theory

This one’s particularly about fiction-writing.

Particularly in the United States, we have this cultural idea that people who are good at things can get away with stuff that wouldn’t be tolerated in those of lesser skill. The idea is prevalent in our stories; I’ve named the idea for Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in Top Gun, but you can find it in many genres: Axel Foley and John McClaine, Sherlock Holmes (and, of course, Dr. House), Jack Bauer, Ferris Bueller, Doc Brown, etc., etc.

Here’s the problem. Being really good at something doesn’t make it forgivable to be a jerk and to treat yourself as entitled to things that others aren’t simply because they’re not as good as you. I’m sure that you have personal examples of this in your own life, where people expect special treatment because of a particular process or reputation.

There are writers who flout the rules, refusing to use quotation marks (Cormac McCarthy) or capital letters (e.e. cummings) or preferring an abstract, almost nonsensical stream of consciousness (I’m looking at you, Joyce), to name a few.

Combined with this cultural idea of the badass who breaks the rules, there’s a temptation to believe that one has to make some defiant stylistic choice to mark one’s genius to others. Maybe I’m just not that kind of risk taker, but I typically find it obtrusive and petty to see the rules (such as they are) of writing snapped—it’s far more fun to see them bent.

Conclusion

That’s certainly not an exhaustive list of obstacles to overcome in writing, but it does hit some high points. At the end of the day, there are few truly good writers in the world, even amongst published authors. This is partially because the craft is so difficult, but also because we don’t really devote enough time or respect for those who write well (though we’re happy to lament how many do not). Writing well takes a lot of practice, and we seem to think that our time is better spent elsewhere.

For many of us, perhaps it is. But imagine a world where everything—everything—that is written is written in the most precise, complete, concise and informative way. Think how much time and confusion we’d save, how much better ideas would be expressed, how much easier it would be to learn new things, how much better our stories would be. In short, think how much more alive life would be.

Fatherhood

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Our housekeeper came yesterday. K’s been trying to work half-days to prolong her time off since I’m off work for a few weeks, so I had the kids by myself.

She kept calling me “Mr. Mom” because I was tending the children. I tried to shrug it off—I’m spending a lot of time lately learning to choose my battles. But it really bothered me.

You see, I’m not a babysitter; I’m not a guy playing at being a mom. I’m a father. That means caring for the children, spending time with them, being present, and doing all of the not-so-pleasant things that come with parenthood. It’s not a burden only for the female sex, nor are the privileges and the accomplishments of parenthood reserved for mothers.

We often say, “It takes a village,” to raise children, but we seem to mean that it takes a village of women. Predetermined societal roles and expectations do not appeal to me much; in fact, I find many of them detrimental to living life in ways that would be more meaningful, fulfilling and joy-inspiring.

I am pleased by the prospect of more stay-at-home dads in the world, both because it empowers women to be the breadwinner in a family and allows men who are excellent caregivers to take on that role within the family. This arrangement shatters pretenses of bygone ages that a man’s role is to make money and a woman’s is to bear and raise children. The fall of these societal obstacles allows us to be more complete people, to use all of our skills and fulfill more of the life-roles to which we’ve been called.

Even more, we live in an economic era where single-income families are less and less feasible—particularly if both spouses want to have work-life balance. Y’know, that phrase, “work-life balance” is a very telling one, when you think about it. There’s work and there’s life, and never the twain shall meet it seems to say. I’m not sure that that’s entirely true, but it’s something worth keeping in mind.

Neither does a such a gender-defined set of roles allow us to understand same-sex couples or other non-cisgendered parents in any respectful (or even truly understanding) way. My experience tells me that anyone can be a great parent. Sure there are aspects of personality or expertise in certain skills that make some better suited than others, but neither of these have anything to do with sex or gender.

I consider myself a pretty traditionally masculine guy. Not the most masculine to be sure—I’m not much impressed by bodybuilding or machismo and such—but I do fit a lot of traditional male roles: I like the outdoors; I like to participate in martial sports; I’m a “identify and fix the problem, let’s not talk about it too much” sort of guy.

Gender definitions aside, I could see myself being a stay-at-home dad. If I could make a living writing and spend much of the rest of my time focused on the kids, I would find that very fulfilling. I like practicing law, and I do a lot of good work for people about which I can be proud. But pondering big thoughts and writing about them is my passion, and I’m very excited about the role I get to play in raising our children. To combine both would be amazing. Realistic? I’m not sure; making a living as a writer is extremely tough and not necessarily based on skill. But maybe it could happen.

My own desires aside, let’s keep in mind that parenthood is a calling for both parents; and our expectations of parents should follow suit with this: we should both expect fathers to be active parents and then not treat them as second-class surrogates for mothers.

 

Sleep at Last; Sleep at Last; Thank the Lord, We Have Sleep at Last!

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Yesterday was full of firsts. It was our first time to leave the home since getting the kids, our first time for the kids to meet my sister and her fiance, and our first time to get a good night’s rest.

We still went through the rigamorole with the kids before bed time. Apparently, nobody really likes baths (though Bess loves brushing teeth) and sleep is the worst. We’ve found the secret to getting Bess to sleep, though. You put her in the bed and sit with her while she tantrums until, in a sudden reversal of fortune, she’s asleep. It really does happen in the blink of an eye, like Dorothy stepping out from the tornado and into Oz. Without munchkins and singing and candy. We’ll have to do something about the last part–in the midst of the exhaustion and occasional frustration, sweets are an easy pleasure.

Abe is starting to settle in, and we’re getting used to some of his rhythms, his different types of crying, and what he likes and dislikes. Though most of the progress we made yesterday had admittedly little to do with K and I; a friend of ours brought several types of bouncers and bascinets to try and the little man quickly found one to his liking. This is a Godsend, as he previously was only happy while being held, if not rocked or bounced. As K puts it, we’d have to Indiana Jones him into the crib when we hoped he was in deep enough of a sleep not to immediately awaken upon being set down. Like the victims of an alien predator, it’s our body heat that gives us away.

We can tell there’s bonding going on with both Abe and Bess. We’re starting to see Abe smile more and more (which we saw none of on day one), so we’re taking that as a good sign he’s starting to feel safe and comfortable. Bess is getting more and more talkative, surprising us that her vocabulary is broader than we first believed. We’ll need some work on speaking clearly, but I don’t think that’s too much of a concern at this age. She’s clearly very intelligent (which every parent says ever about their child; the difference is I don’t believe all those other guys).

K has taken the kids with her to church while she works; we’ll both have a little break at the expense of the church nursery. Time for me to write this post, try and catch up on a few work things, shave for the first time in three days, and hopefully get in some time for some fiction-writing, now that I’m actually rested enough to do some of those things!

More to come!

Ask and You Shall Receive

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No sooner had I published my post about our false alarm earier this week, than my phone rang. One of our placement workers on the line; they had another potential placement for us. This time, a 3-month old boy (We’ll call him “Abe”) and a 2-year old girl (we’ll call her “Bess”), just taken into custody by Child Protective Services today. We didn’t have much information to go on about the situation they’d come from, but we were ready to take the plunge. A quick conference between K and I and we were back on the phone with the placement worker.

She submitted us for consideration for the placement and we waited  an hour and a half that seemed to drag on forever. We got a call back just before noon that we’d been accepted and that the kids were coming to us that day. I rushed home from work to make sure everything was in order. K joined me sooner thereafter and we tried to busy ourself as we waited for the call from CPS that Abe and Bess were on the way.

They arrived around dinner time Thursday evening. After signing all of the CPS paperwork, our time as parents had begun.

I had intended to post something on Thursday, but I found no time to do so. Here we are, two mostly sleepless nights, and the sun is coming up again. We managed to get Bess to go to sleep around eleven last night (for some reason unknown, trying to put her to bed is one of her triggers, although after last night we may be easing our way thr0ugh that), so K spent most of the night up with Abe. Since I’m a morning person who doesn’t nap, K let me try to get as much sleep as I could last night. She’s a night owl who would much rather sleep in, so we switched off with Abe about twenty minutes ago.

Abe is asleep (only so long as he’s behing held–he’s currently comfortable in one of those wrap-carrier things so that I can type). Bess is still in bed and has a decent sleep debt from Thursday night (when she wouldn’t go to bed until after 5 a.m.) to catch up on. K is resting while we can. I sit at the kitchen table, a mostly-empty bowl of cereal beside the Ipad and a pot of coffee brewing. It’s the most peace and time for myself I’ve had in two days. We’ll see how long it lasts…

False Alarm

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Monday night I got a call from our agency informing us that we are now open to receive a placement! It was after five when we got the call (I didn’t answer, so it was a voice message), so I called back Tuesday morning.

When I called, one of our placement workers informed me that they had a potential placement and asked if we wanted to be put it to take them–a brother and sister of 5 and 6 that, based on the information we had, looked like a great fit for us. I quickly called K (pulled her out of a meeting) and consulted with her.

After giving her the information, she had to go back into the meeting (a staff meeting at the church where she’s the director of children’s ministries) and give the devotional. I waited by the phone for her return call. It didn’t take us long to decide that we wanted to try to get the placement.

I called the placement worker at our agency and asked her to put us forward. Then we had to wait an excruciating few hours to know whether Child Protective Services was going to choose us for the placement.

They didn’t. As it turns out, when CPS sent out the message looking for potential foster homes, they neglected to state that there was a foster home already familiar with the children and that they were likely going there–which is exactly what happened.

Needless to say, K and I were exhausted by the emotional roller-coaster of the process, and understandably disappointed that things didn’t work out this time.

On the other hand, we now know what it’s like to go through the potential (emergency) placement process and the experience quickly built our relationship and trust with our placement workers (who were also left out of the seemingly-important information CPS had, otherwise they would have let us know up front that that might be the case).

We had an in-person meeting with our placement workers yesterday afternoon. This is a standard practice and I’d called Tuesday morning in part to set it up. We understood going into the foster-to-adopt program that there are a lot of variables and that there will often times be things we just do not know when we’re asked to make decisions regarding placements. To the extent that we can, we’ve made peace with that.

I can’t say enough how great our placement workers are–we came away from yesterday’s meeting extremely thankful that we have them in our corner.

And so now, we go back to waiting, watching our phones for that call from the special placement number, which could come at any time, wondering who the children will be and what kind of situation they’ll be coming from, imagining what it will be like but trying not to set up expectations, struggling to keep our minds and hearts open. Impatient.

Ambiguity in Scripture, Part II

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In the previous post in this series, we looked quite generally at ambiguity in scripture and how it draws us in to wrestle with difficult concepts of theology, metaphysics and existence in general. Today, I want to look at one passage in particular.

It’s the passage often referred to as “The Rich Young Ruler.” It appears in both all three synoptic gospels, but I’m taking the text here from Matthew 19:16-22 in the English Standard Version:

16And behold, a man came up to him [Jesus], saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” 17And he [Jesus] said to him [the rich young ruler], “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” 18He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, 19Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 20The young man said to him, “All these I have kept. What do I still lack?” 21Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 22When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”

What happens at the end of this passage? Does the young man surrender his possessions and follow Jesus? The traditional answer is, “No,” and the following statement of Jesus about rich people and camels and heaven seems to support this interpretation.

But look closer. We don’t actually know what the rich young ruler does, we only know that he goes away with sorrow. We assume that he goes away sorrowful because he is not willing to give away his wealth, but he could just as easily be going away sorrowful because he has decided to give away his wealth and is suffering the angst and upset that inevitably follows the loss of material things.

Jesus’s statement about getting into heaven being more difficult for a rich man than a camel passing through the eye of the needle doesn’t really tell us anything that gives us logical support for either interpretation. Jesus could be implying that this young man has triumphed where others may not, or that this man, like many others, will be unable to let go of worldly things, or even that we don’t yet know what the young man will do and Jesus is simply describing the difficulty of the choice he has to make.

Which is the correct answer? We don’t know, and—purposefully, I think—we cannot know. Without a definite answer, we have to consider each possibility; we cannot cast any aside.

When we acknowledge the ambiguity in this story instead of glossing it over with the traditional answer, we are given to contemplate: (1) the difficulty of surrendering worldly things to follow Jesus, (2) the inevitable sorrow that would result from choosing to give up worldly things to follow Jesus, and (3) the difficulty of being within that choice, the struggle to decide one way or the other and to be willing to live with the consequences.

One story, three points. If we were definitively told that the rich young ruler goes away because he will not do what Jesus has asked, we lose meaning in this passage rather than gaining meaning.

Ambiguity allows several points to be put forth at the same time, simultaneously multiplying the meaning to be found in a passage while providing syntactic and stylistic efficiency the communication of those multiple meanings. In other words, the Bible says more with less when ambiguity is (under the right circumstances, of course) employed, as it is throughout.

Think about why Jesus speaks in parables. Parables are analogies; analogies have slippage between the two things compared, creating ambiguity. Thus, in parables, Jesus can convey more complex meaning than by making direct and unequivocal statements. This is, in part, why we often hear people say, “Every time I reread the Bible (or a particular passage), I get something new out of it.”

Your state of mind at the time you read a passage will influence how you resolve ambiguities. Therefore, at different times in your life and under different circumstances, the scriptures will speak to you in different ways, with the most applicable ideas from a particular passage always seeming to float to the top.

This is not to say that there is relativism in what Jesus says; on the topics of greatest importance, Jesus speaks clearly—“Love your neighbor as yourself,” for instance. Even in this passage, the meaning that following Jesus is the goal is not equivocated or made ambivalent. The Bible uses ambiguity selectively to force us to consider those things that are not ambiguous. It is clear that we are to love our neighbors, but what does it mean to love them? This is a serious theological question and, in current church issues, at the heart of the debates in various denominations about the approach to the LGBTQ community within the Christian faith.

I’ll talk a little about how I think we should approach resolving difficult ambiguities like the one above in a later post in this series. For now, I want to point something out about the ambiguity of how we love our neighbors. If Jesus meant for us to move away from the legalism of the Old Testament, such an ambiguous command is a perfect way to do it. Without detailed and clear guidance, we cannot easily say to ourselves, “I have done enough; I need do no more for my neighbors.” Instead, we must always ask ourselves, “Am I loving my neighbors? What more can I do, or what can I do differently, to love them better?” The ambiguity of how to carry out the command demands more of us than a black-and-white commandment, elevating, empowering and extending the exhortation itself.

Point 2: Ambiguity allows greater meaning in fewer words through the incorporation of alternative possible resolutions of the ambiguity.

For the next post in this series, click here.

Ambiguity in Scripture, Part I

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In the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, a German Jew who had fled to Istanbul to avoid the Nazis wrote what I think is one of the foundational books for any literary understanding of the scriptures. His name was Erich Auerbach; the book was Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature.

If the stories are to be believed, circumstances forced Auerbach to do much of his work by memory, for he did not have access to all of the texts drawn from and cited to in Mimesis. While a fascinating thought, it is largely irrelevant; Auerbach was a genius whatever the strength of his memory.

It is only the first chapter of the book, entitled “Odysseus’ Scar,” that concerns us for the time being. In that chapter, Auerbach argues that there are two major iconic styles of storytelling running through western civilization, at least historically speaking. Like Tolkien, Auerbach was a philologist by training, born at the end of the 19th Century, and with a penchant for looking backward, far backward, rather than at the contemporary.

Two iconic styles of literature in historic western writing. Only two. The first, Auerbach tells us, is the style best exemplified by the works of Homer, in the Iliad and (as the chapter’s title suggests) the Odyssey. By way of example, Auerbach carefully describes the scene in which Odysseus has returned home in disguise after his long journey. He is recognized for his true self by a scar on his leg, and Homer gives us great detail about that scar—how it was got, where it is, etc.—as it plays its pivotal role in the plot.

That is Homer in a nutshell, overflowing with detail, carefully crafting images in our mind’s eye, little left out for us, all with the purpose (Auerbach says) of giving us a profound sense of awe, and therefore pleasure. This is a pagan style, rich in sensory data and concerned with worldly delight.

Homer is to be contrasted with the Biblical style—a Dragnet-style, “Just the facts, ma’am,” and not even all of the facts we want to know. We get the bare bones of the story, just enough information to understand the flow of events, but not enough to become cognizant of all that is going on in the story.

Auerbach’s example of this is one I never forget and often use. You should play along. Think about Abraham and Isaac in Genesis. We know that Isaac is Abraham’s son, that God has commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac as a test of his faith, that Isaac seems to go along willingly. But how old is Isaac? Before you go back to the text to check, I want you to see if you can recall the answer by memory. What does Isaac look like in your memory? How old is he?

Of course, I’m pulling one over on you. Genesis doesn’t tell us Isaac’s age at the time of Abraham’s trial. We tend to think of him as young, perhaps pre-adolescent, seemingly innocent and only wanting to please his father. But that’s not the only possibility.

In the middle ages, theologians largely believed that Isaac was thirty-three when Abraham took him to be sacrificed. An adult! One who might have moved out of his parents’ home! Who might have his own children! My age, in fact.

Does an adult Isaac willingly going along with Abraham seem strange to you? For the medieval theologians, it was strange to think that he was only a boy. Why? Because they believed that Jesus was thirty-three at the time of his crucifixion; they were searching for parallels that showed continuity between the Old Testament and the New.

What Auerbach wants to show us here is that the Bible often, seemingly purposefully, leaves out details from the story, even potentially important ones for the story’s meaning. The literary effect could not be farther from the Homeric one. Where Homer fills in all the details, forcing the reader to step back and spectate in awe, the Bible forces the reader to fill in the blanks, engaging with the story. The reader of scripture must make choices to resolve ambiguities in the text, must interpret, must participate.

It is commonly argued that the gospels are written in both style and substance in such a way as to force the reader to ask and answer the same question as everyone else in the narrative: who do you believe Jesus is? But Auerbach takes this idea even further—the very style of the entire scriptures (though he was more focused perhaps on the Old Testament) does not allow us to stand idly by and watch—we must struggle with the text (and here Jacob wrestling with God comes to mind quite readily) to make it mean something. We must invest ourselves in it and synthesize it with ourselves for the text to come alive. The sparsity of detail naturally pulls us in to do just this, even if you don’t recognize it’s happening.

Point One: Ambiguity forces us to engage; we cannot simply absorb.

For the next post in this series, click here.

Paganism in Christianity, Part II

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In my earlier post on this subject, I talked about my distaste for military imagery in Christian thought and theology. This time, I’d like to talk about something I think is even more dangerous—the quid-pro-quo.

We all know what the phrase means (from Hannibal Lector in The Silence of the Lambs if from nowhere else): “something for something”, a bargain, an exchange—perhaps especially driven by need more than desire.

The quid-pro-quo formed a foundational aspect of Greco-Roman religion. Given that the gods could be cruel and easily took offense at the unintentional misdeeds of humans, it seems that one might wish to avoid the attention of the gods to the extent possible. Similar to me and cats, for the same reasons.

On the other hand, the Greco-Roman pagans did seek otherworldly assistance in their lives. But, they asked and prayed for things more worldly than we might think of as proper (in Christianity). They wanted good harvests, protection from their enemies (or curses upon them, as many ritual objects attest), the love of someone they desired. Far less time was spent praying for things that would be considered “spiritual” or that concerned cosmic redemption or punishment.

There were many gods to ask favors of as well. There were the Olympian gods, the most powerful of the supernatural beings, but there were also daemones (not to be confused with demons—the daimones or daemones were nature spirits and tutelary spirits, who could be good, evil, or somewhat more ambiguous), genii loci (the spirits of places that had influence over that place) and many other beings of all manner of rank who were believed to have the power to effectuate change in the visible world.

For the ancient Romans (and probably also the Greeks, but I am somewhat less familiar with their religious practices—though fascinating), one simply did not approach a supernatural being empty-handed. Something must be given for something asked, a quid-pro-quo. And so sacrifices were made to the gods when a request was made of them. This could be something personal—an oath or vow made to a god if a request was granted—but animal sacrifice was common and human sacrifice, though quite rare, was not unheard of.

While we may have left animal and human sacrifices behind us, we to a large extent not abandoned the paradigm of the quid-pro-quo when dealing with the divine. This concept runs deeper than the place in prayer we’ve all been: “God if you do X for me, I promise I’ll never do X again,” or “God if X happens, I promise I’ll go to church more.” Other theologians have popularly described this as the “vending machine-God” approach.

It is comforting because it gives us some illusion of control, some ability to predict the movement of the divine so long as we hold up our end of the bargain. And yet, when we repeatedly find that that’s not how God works, our faith is shaken because it stands of the weakest of foundations.

This approach is also tied into the gospel of wealth movement: “If I’m a good Christian, God will make me wealthy and well-liked and powerful and important.” This empty theology has become concerningly popular and widespread in recent decades. Keep in mind, though, that this is only part of the reason the doctrine is so seductive; the inverse can also be a source of comfort from reality: “If I am rich and well-liked and powerful, I must be godly.” Dangerous stuff, that.

But this is not a post about the gospel of wealth. It’s about a more insidious type of quid-pro-quo—the spiritual bargain.

E. Stanley Jones, in his book form the early 20th century called The Christ of the Mount, tells us that we’ve been doing things the wrong way in Christianity  because we mistakenly believe that the point of Christianity is to “get into heaven.” For Jones, the point is “to become perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect,” but for now let’s focus on moving away from the wrong way rather than finding the right one.

Perhaps you’ve heard of Pascal’s Wager, named for apologist and philosopher Blaise Pascal. It goes like this: God is either real or not. In choosing how to live, we are told that God wants us to do certain things but not others, and that there are eternal rewards for those who follow God’s desires and eternal punishments for those who do not—again, if God is real. Without knowing for sure whether God is real or not (is the universe bluffing?), we must bet on whether we believe God is real. There are four possibilities then, based upon our bet and whether God is real. One, God is real and we believed and acted like God is real, so we get to go to heaven. Two, God is real and we ignored God and so we have to go to hell. Three, God is not real but we have lived our lives as though God is real, perhaps sacrificing some worldly pleasures and desires we might otherwise have enjoyed. Four, God is not real and we do not act as if God is real, nothing lost but nothing gained.

For Pascal, the answer to such a quandary is simple—one ought to act like the Christian God is real and try to obey God and be holy. If you’re wrong, your loss is minimal compared to God being real and not trying to obey, falling into perdition. It’s a betting man’s approach to faith, based upon probabilities, severity of the various possible outcomes, and the quid-pro-quo of what each possibility might net compared to the cost of the bet.

Pascal’s bet exemplifies the cynical quid-pro-quo approach to spirituality: “Don’t be faithful because of who God is; be faithful because it’s the fastest ticket to Heaven-town.” If this is the kind of faith that we have, it is no faith at all and we only deceive ourselves that we are seeking relationship with God.

The only way to avoid the illusion of the divine quid-pro-quo is to adopt an attitude of love—the kind of selfless love that we call agape—for God. It is a love that does not expect something in return, that does is not contingent upon a particular situation, that will not be rescinded when the unfortunate comes to pass.

Our God has negated the quid-pro-quo altogether. The work of Jesus Christ cleared the way to salvation and eternal life, not the bargaining or righteousness of man. We are called to sanctify ourselves to be sure, to pursue holiness and to become Christ-like. But this has been separated from salvation freely given by grace without cost. Our desire to be sanctified must come from our love for God, for by the time we make such a decision or have such a desire, God has long since given us the gift of life eternal. There can be no quid-pro-quo; the gifts have been poured upon us until our cups runneth over. We ought to act like it.